The note, signed with the gang's name, Neta, was found after paramedics took the dying inmate to Lucerne Medical Center, according to Orange County sheriff's reports.

Contents of the note remained undisclosed Monday.

``How the heroin got in there is a question we're looking into as well as the Sheriff's Office,'' jail spokesman Allen Moore said Monday.

Heroin deaths are at an all-time high in Central Florida, but overdoses involving inmates haven't happened before in Orange County. An increasing concern for jail officials is the growing number of inmates who arrive addicted to heroin and other drugs. Last fall, an escaped inmate died of a heroin overdose less than three days after running from a jail work crew.

Moore said he did not know about the discovery of the gang note, but said the presence of gangs in the jail is ``a major concern for us and it is getting worse.''

Neta began in Puerto Rico in 1970 when inmates in Rio Piedras prison organized themselves to stop inmate violence. It is open to Puerto Rican men.

Neta has incorporated itself as a human-rights organization, but prison officials say it is a criminal group with fast-growing ties to Florida.

``It's the largest traditional gang we track in the Department of Corrections,'' said Cory Godwin, the Florida prisons gang specialist and head of the Florida Gang Investigators Association. ``Neta is an emerging problem. Not only here but all along the East Coast.''

About 50 Neta members have been jailed in Orange County since they first began to be identified two years ago, said officer James Keeble, the jail's gang specialist. The jail is creating a task force to monitor and control the growth of gangs, he said.

So far, the state prison system has identified 34 members of Neta. Godwin said although the number appears small, the threat that the gang members pose is a matter of ``quality over quantity.''

A state corrections gang advisory states: ``Neta is dangerous to staff and inmates. Drug activity, extortion and gang-related violence are what they do and they do it violently.''

Guards in the Orange County Jail have not seen any violence or gang-related violence, Keeble said. ``At the present, they are at a minimum,'' he said.

Candelaria, who was born in Puerto Rico, was not a known member of Neta or any other gang, according to the state Department of Corrections.

An admitted heroin addict and dealer, he had been jailed continuously since mid-June. He was being held in medium security with 1,151 other inmates as a result of escaping in early May from a work-release program.

If Candelaria died of a heroin overdose, someone smuggled it to him, officials concede.

``Contraband is a fact of life in any jail or correction facility, and we do whatever we can to minimize the flow of contraband into our facilities,'' Moore said. ``Unfortunately, there are always people who smuggle drugs, cigarettes and other items to inmates.''

Visits between inmates and their relatives are the most common way for drugs to enter the jail, Moore said. Inmates are strip-searched after visits, but their body cavities are not searched unless a guard suspects an inmate of hiding something, he said.

``They do find drugs, but it is rare,'' Moore said.

Investigators would not say Monday why heroin abuse was suspected. An advisory sent Saturday afternoon to top sheriff's commanders about the death said it was a possible heroin overdose.

The preliminary cause of Candelaria's death will not be known for three weeks. If heroin or other drugs are detected, more extensive testing will require up to six weeks longer, according to the Orange County Medical Examiner's Office.